""....WAS Reggie really 'bone idle and thick' or *was* he one of the thousands of kids out there who struggle every single day in a situation which is completely alien to them, terrifying the shite out of them and where not one single person seems able to comprehend them or realise that kids like Reggie so often just need one to one teaching, in a quiet environment, where they're not surrounded by hundreds, or thousands of faces, people..that scare them shitless?""


The Reggie in question, at the age of ten, was caught red handed, on a bridge over a 60mph bypass, with a pile of half housebricks, after bouncing one off the roof of a car (thank God it WAS the roof, and not the windscreen).

At the police station his mother tried to say he'd been at home all day, and he called her a stupid bitch, and attacked her with fists, teeth, and boots. It took three policemen to pull him off.

This same little angel, twice hit a teacher in the face with a chair, when instructed to sit down on said chair. On each occasion he was excluded, and, on each occasion immediately re-instated by the LEA.

Does that sound like the poor little victim of society YOU describe? Some kids ARE just PLAIN EVIL.

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""Slightly different though, Paula. First you've *chosen* to be there and can leave at any moment. Second, you're not *made* to take exams, learn things against your will..and, you're not spoken down to, or bullied, because if you were, someone would be taken to task over it and severely reprimanded, or possibly even lose their job over it. You're protected in school ***because you are an adult*** and therefore you have a whole range of paths you can go down if other if needed.""


You really don't have much of a clue about schools do you Lizzie? I've actually seen what people like Paula have to put up with, knowing all the while that there is just NO point in following the procedures you mention, because they WON'T get the backup they need.

Anti bullying protocols for adults in the workplace are ineffective, and actually damaging to the career of anybody who invokes them.

You try getting a promotion, or another job, once you are marked down as a troublemaker. Stay where you are, and there are a hundred and one ways in which your working life can be made an absolute hell.

I've been a victim of this, and I DO know what I'm talking about. I believe our friend Richard Bridge might remember me asking his advice on the subject.

As for your other comments about "You don't have to be there" and "Nobody makes you take exams", well, the ignorance displayed is astounding.

Thank your lucky stars that there are still some dedicated educators who are prepared to slog their way though the crap to educate the children of ungenerous, ungrateful people like you. As to the exams, you are right that people take exams voluntarily to improve their efficiency, but if you think they are never MADE to take exams, perhaps you would tell me what YOU think an Ofsted appraisal is?

I have more respect for teachers than for any other profssionals on this planet, because the end product of their labours is the FUTURE of said planet, and their job would be INFINITELY easier if some complaisant parents were to do THEIR job just half as well.

Don T.